It took only six years, but you can now buy the deluxe edition of “To Make as Perfectly as Possible: Roubo on Marquetry” in the Lost Art Press store.
The book is made to the highest manufacturing standards. The content of this book took a worldwide team of dedicated people more than six years to complete. It is, in a nutshell, the first English translation of the most important 18th-century book on woodworking.
If you cannot afford the deluxe edition (which ships in August), we recommend selling your plasma. Or… we will be selling a nice trade edition this fall for about $60. But the deluxe edition will be printed only once. We are printing 600 copies. And more than 450 have already been sold. And I am sure you are lousy with plasma.
If you want one, you plasma-rich carbon-based lifeform, click here to read more about it.
Time has proved that when parts are glued with the best of glue, used according to well-known rules by first-class mechanics, the pieces will not come apart during reasonable wear. We have seen coach bodies built over one hundred years ago, and a great deal longer, where the panels would stick to the framing and the inside canvas glued to the panels was still in good condition.
Furniture that has been made in centuries past with tenons fitted and glued, is as solid today as when made. We have examined furniture, knowing that it was eighty years old at least, and the mahogany veneering was as solid as if only glued the day before. All such furniture was well made and well glued and the workmanship was of the best.
The high-class furniture at the present time looks far better, when compared with the antique, but it will not stand the usage. We refer to furniture in this article because the difference in construction and finish and their defective qualities are far more apparent than on carriages, but in both furniture and carriages the same means have been and are still employed; that is, the woodwork is fitted and glued by hand or machinery, and the timber is either air or kiln-dried. (more…)
It would be part of my scheme of physical education that every youth in the State—from the King’s son downwards—should learn to do something finely and thoroughly with his hand, so as to let him know what touch meant; and what stout craftmanship meant; and to inform him of many things besides, which no man can learn but by some severely accurate discipline in doing. Let him once learn to take a straight shaving off a plank, or draw a fine curve without faltering, or lay a brick level in its mortar; and he has learned a multitude of other matters which no lips of man could ever teach him.
John Ruskin
Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne : Twenty-five letters to a working man of Sunderland on the Law of Work – (London) 1867
This industry as used in this report includes establishments engaged in the manufacture of sash, doors, blinds, window frames, door frames, moldings, stair material, newels, mantels, store fixtures, and all kinds of builders’ trim or finish.
A large number of the establishments are comparatively small and confine their operations wholly to custom work. Many of them are operated in connection with a retail lumber business. Some are run by contractors who carry on large building operations, and manufacture trim, mostly for their own use. Some custom mills in the larger cities are quite extensive and employ a large number of workmen.
A few establishments manufacture for the general market. Such establishments, as a rule, employ a larger number of workmen than the custom mills or factories, have their work more systematized, and pay somewhat lower wages. The latter fact may be accounted for by the greater division of labor whereby an employee, while being expert in the operation of a particular machine or in performing certain work, is not a skilled workman generally, and so can not command as high wages as an all-round skilled mechanic. (more…)
Despite an overheated travel and teaching schedule this summer, I have written three complete chapters to the “Campaign Furniture” book and am now fitting the final brasses on a teak campaign chest.
This book will be written by Dec. 31 with a release date in early 2014.
In addition to the progress on the campaign front, here’s what else is brewing at Lost Art Press.
1. I have finished revising “Art of Joinery,” and the page-design process will begin in short order. This second and expanded edition of “Art of Joinery” will be released this fall (I hope in time for Woodworking in America). This edition will introduce some new manufacturing changes to our 6×9 books, including patterned end sheets and deckle edges.
2. The deluxe version of “To Make as Perfectly as Possible” is now in the hands of the printer. We are waiting for a press date. Designer Wesley Tanner is now turning his attention to designing the trade edition of the book. We have worked out some manufacturing details and can now say that the trade version will be $60. And it will be worth that.
3. John Hoffman is plowing through a critical part of our five-year project, cleaning up some files to get them ready for the designer. This massive, massive book is as important as anything we have done. And yes, it has something to do with Charles Hayward.
The primary reason I have been making so much progress these last two months has been that I’m not blogging much. So thanks to Jeff Burks to picking up my slack. His primary-source entries are the kind of thing you cannot get anywhere else. I know it takes a little more patience to read the longer-form entries written in Victorian-era language. But there is solid gold in every entry (not to mention the cool photos he digs up).
OK, back to the shop. I have to fit the last eight brasses on this chest.
It took only six years, but you can now buy the deluxe edition of “To Make as Perfectly as Possible: Roubo on Marquetry” in the Lost Art Press store.
